Week of 10/19/09

This week was one of the best weeks of school. In chemistry, we did a lab with flames on Wednesday. We put a metal loop into different solutions of chloride and burned it in a flame. There were many different-colored flames. My favorite colored flame was a pinkish purple flame. It burned for a long time. Some other flames did not burn as long. This lab was one of the funnest lab. After we burned the specific flames, we got six other mystery solutions. We had to guess which solution we thought the flame would be from. Yesterday, I saw some glow in the dark thing after the light went through the filters. I learned about the electromagnetic spectrum. I learned that there were different wave properties like the frequency, wavelength, and energy. All lights had the same speed. The infrared light video was very cool. Night vision was interesting. We also finished the Einstein video.

Week of 10/12/09

This week was overall not as stressful. For chemistry, we watched more of the movie. I liked this movie. It was great on how the movie taught us all of the history behind each part of the equation. I thought Albert Einstein had an odd mind because he could connect energy with mass and the speed of light. I did not like how Einstein left his first wife and married his cousin. He was not loyal and only cared about his fame. I think marrying your cousin is diagusting. In class, we also did a lot of practice on alpha and beta radiation equations. I discovered that I always made many careless mistakes on these equations. I need to be more careful when I fill in the equation. I also learned about using C-14 to find out how old something is. I found this pretty interesting.

Week of 9/21/09

This week, we did a worksheet and handout called Life on the Edge. We learned about valence electrons and the shells of elements. There were also electrons called core electrons. We learned about trends in the periodic table like the sizes of atoms and ions, electronegativity, and ionization energy. the Ionization Energy is the emount of energy needed to remove an electron. Electron-greeiness is Electronegativity. This Friday, we will have a Unit 1 Test. I hope I do well. Also, today we saw sublimation from dry ice. the experiments we did were very cool. We saw bubbles form. What I thought that was the coolest was when the bubbles floated in the aquarium because the dry ice gave off carbon dioxide, so the bubbles were hovering over the ice. Today was a fun day.

What A Stressful Week!!!

This week, I was loaded with homework. Well, anyways, for chemistry, we did many pages of worksheets. We learned many things about the periodic table. We discovered many trends in the periodic table. We learned that the elements with similar properties belonged to the same family (column). From the top to the bottom, the atomic size and mass increases. From left to right, the atomic mass increases. The Alkaline and Alkaline Earth Metals were very reactive. The Noble gases do not react. I also learned how ions were formed, either by adding or taking away electrons. The Group 1, 2, and 13 elements tend to form positive ions or cations. The elements in Groups 6 and 7 tend to form negative ions or anions. I learned how to write different isotopes with a special notation. We also have to do a webpage about a particular element. My element is Manganese (Mn). MN is my initials, so I chose manganese.

Week of 9/7/09

This week, we had a short week because of the labor day weekend. We did not have school on Monday. We have back-to-school night tonight. We have minimum day tomorrow, on Friday. Yesterday, we used placed the element cards into a table-like structure. We had to find similarities and differences in the elements. We had to sing the "How I Convert" song. We had a lot of fun. We were recorded onto a music video. Today, in the beginning of class, we watched the music video, it was a combination of all of Mr.Olson's classes. It was very funny. Later, we sang the song "Milli Meter and her Nine Brothers". This song sounded very sad. It was for memorizing that 10 milimeters were in a centimeter. Later, we started "Breaking the Code", we had to answer the questions about the periodic table we made yesterday. I can't wait till tomorrow, minimum day!!!

Chem lab: Density & Chem lab: Elements &Compounds

This week, we did a lab on density. We used the same one formula to solve for the mass and the volume. We measured solid rectangular objects. We also measured the volume of liquids. We did another lab this week. It was the Element and Compounds. We broke down a compound into its elements and we formed a compound from two elements. The first part, we broke down the compound water into two elements hydrogen and oxygen. We mixed a universal indicator, a pinch of salt, and a half dish of water. We had to attach pencil lead to each of the two alligator clips on the 9-volt battery cap. We saw a reaction. The pencil lead on the black end made the solution turn purple; this element was oxygen. The pencil lead on the red end made the solution turn into a vanilla color; this was hydrogen. I saw bubbles at both ends of the lead, but I saw more bubbles at the red end. The balanced chemical reaction was 2 H2O ---> 2 H2 + O2 . For part 2, we formed a compound from two elements. In this part of the lab, we had to wear on goggles. We lit a candle and held a small piece of steel wool with crucible tongs into the flame of the candle. There was a cool chemical reaction. I saw yellow-orange sparks fly from the wool. The iron reacted with oxygen from the air. The sparks flew very quickly. There were silvery blue balls on the tips of the wool after it reacted. The name of the compound that formed from iron and oxygen was iron oxide, FeO. I liked this reaction better. There was more to see.

Matter

This week, we learned about what a matter was. We had to sort things into groups called: matter, not a matter, and unsure. Matter has mass and takes up space. Wind is the movement of molecules so it is not a matter. We did a lab about measurement in chemistry. We had to guess the mass of several items. Then, we had to measure the actual mass of the object with a balance beam. I learned how to use the Vernier Scale on the balance beam. The Vernier Scale allowed us to measure up to the 1/100 of a gram. In the lab, we also had to predict the volume of liquids; this task was a little harder. Next, we measured the liquids using a graduated cylinder. The plastic cup's actual water capacity was not as accurate because I kept spilling water of of the cup when I was pouring it into the graduated cylinder. I learned how to calculate the percent error. Some of my predictions were very inaccurate. From reading the chemistry book, I learned about the scientific method and saw examples of how to use this method.